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I just got The Banker magazine’s February issue discussing the top banking brands of the world. Timely, as I have been talking about trust and brands this week. In particular, I guess I was surprised the Chinese banks are the strongest brands across the board in 2018, with the top 10 names being:    …

In my blog yesterday, I talked about the technology titans being liked and potentially trusted with money, but I still don’t think they will open full-service banking. Instead, I think they will focus upon full-service information. The reason I say this is that they don’t want to be banks, it is not core, but they…

I recently blogged about the Edelman Trust Barometer, which makes clear that technology firms are trusted the most and financial firms the least. This is misguided however, as we need to think about who trusts them with what. Consumers trust technology firms not to abuse their data? Hmmm. Consumers trust technology firms to be truthful? Hmmm….

I spotted two stories about BBVA that appeared yesterday. The first was in the Financial Times with BBVA Chairman Francisco Gonzalez asking the G20 to take action against the big internet firms, saying “authorities [need] to bring order to this massive change” that could “pose risks to financial stability”. He warns that groups such as…

Talking of banks not being trusted, do we have reasons to mis-trust them? Yes, many. Not only are many banks regularly called out for bad behaviour, but some have gone to the extremes of forging customers signatures. Then there has been the UK’s PPI scandal and Wells Fargo’s false account openings, and now there is…

The main blog headlines are … Tencent’s WeChat Pay is AliPay major rival I’ve written a lot about Ant Financial – they’re a 30,000 word case study in my new book – mainly because they are the first payments platform to focus upon global reach for financial inclusion. That is not to say that I…

I’ve written a lot about Ant Financial – they’re a 30,000 word case study in my new book – mainly because they are the first payments platform to focus upon global reach for financial inclusion. That is not to say that I am ignoring the other platforms: PayPal, Stripe, PayTM and such like. In fact,…

I was intrigued to see the latest account switching numbers for the UK. Switching has been a focus of the Competition & Markets Authority, regulators, government and more, and yet promoting people to switch is not working. According to the latest stats, there are around 70 million deposit accounts across the UK, with the average citizen…

I’ve talked a lot about how young visionaries are re-shaping the financial industry. John Collison was 19 when he founded Stripe with his brother Patrick, and Ollie Purdue was 21 when he dropped out of university to found neobank Loot. In fact, there are many innovators under 30 out there, as highlighted last week by Forbes…

I was recently recorded on Roger Edwards’ podcast talking about FinTech, cryptocurrency and corporate change. Roger is a marketing strategist focused upon the insurance industry, and produces regular podcasts about said subject.  You can checkout his website here, and here’s the low-down of our chat: On the show this week, I talk to leading commentator and…